Greetings. I'm new to this forum, and I had a few things that I'd like to clarify.
I read Dr. Bates' book about curing imperfect sight, and thought I'd try it myself. I've been doing mostly palming and sunning for about a month now, and I've noticed tiny improvements, but there were a few things that I didn't quite understand from his book. I'll address those in a bit. First, I should mention that about a week ago, I tried to look at the sun (taking from the book that it's good for the eyes), but now I have a blind spot in my right eye, and it irks me to no end that it won't go away, and it's interfering with my exercises. According to Dr. Bates' book, it's an illusion, which I don't doubt, but I have trouble making it disappear. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how that might be done?
Next, when I sun, I sometime turn my head, and sometime just keep my eyes closed and direct my head toward the sun. Is that good or bad?
Also, when I palm, I understand that I'm not supposed to look at the visual field (which happens to have colorful swirling shapes swirling around), and I try to ignore it as best I can, but my eyes seem drawn to the movement of those colorful blobs. Suggestions? Oh, and when I try to imagine a black dot, those blobs, if anything, start swirling faster/get bigger. Does that mean I'm not imagining it correctly? If so, how should I go about it?
A month... ago I tried looking into the sun with eyes open and got a scotoma that lasted 3 days!
Then it disappeared.
I no longer look into the sun. I do look at the clouds, sky near the sun, but away from the sun, not at it and I do keep the eyes, head moving. If you stare at the sun, eyes, head immobile its more likely to cause the scatoma. Nutirtion: too much sugar... might cause the scatoma from looking a the sun.
When facing the sun I do only closed eyes sunning.
Even when eyes are closed, move the head when facing the sun.
Try not to think about the swirling colors when palming. They will fade when the eyes, mind relax.
You might be trying too hard, straining the mind when imagining the black dot. Be sure to shift on it and you dont have to do it too long. If you stare at the dot, even in the mind, it tenses the mind, eyes and cause cause the swirling colors.
Try other palming methods; imagine a happy thought, scenery, objects and shift on them in the mind.
You're not actually supposed to "look" at the sun. :o You're supposed to close your eyes and face them toward the sun. This only, really, helps with light sensitivity. Looking directly into the sun is very dangerous to your eyes.
"The Sun is very bright and by focusing the light onto the back of your eye (the retina)with a telescope or without a telescope [with professional solar filter that covers the front of the telescope], you are putting a lot of energy (both optical light and infra-red) onto a tiny area. At some point in your life you may have tried to set paper on fire using a magnifying glass, so just think about that being done to the back of your eye. It isn't nice. Even more scarily is the fact that the retina of your eye does not have pain receptors, so you will not even feel the damage being done. It may not even become apparent until later." http://www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/000347.shtml
Please stop looking directly into the sun; You are damaging your eyes.
A friend was using his telescope and his friend forgot to place a certain eye protection piece in the scope and my friend burnt his cornea by looking through the telescope at the sky, (I think then the sun accidently). his cornea had a scar, impaired his vision. Using Bates method to try fix it.
This was one of the things that initially deterred me from pursuing the Bates method. I took some people's descriptions of sunning as telling the reader to look directly into the sun. This made me more prone to dismiss everything else they were saying: unless you're Superman, staring into the sun for protracted periods of time WILL damage your sight. You don't have to be looking through a lens. A person claiming improved sight from staring directly at the sun has obviously never done those excercises, and therefore is likely to be lying about the others. I've since encountered more reasonable versions of sunning involving closed eyes and shorter time periods.
NEVER, NEVER, EVER look right at the sun with your naked eyes, or even with regular sunglasses. People have been permanently blinded in this way. As was mentioned above, the retina lacks nerves and so phototoxic retinopathy (permanent damage to the retina) can occur without you even knowing it. After the 1999 solar eclipse, a few people were left with lasting damage to their sight after they ignored all the warnings and stared right at the sun. Even on a cloudy day, you can harm yourself by looking at the sun. You can also damage your eyes with too much reflected sunlight, for example from snow.
UV light from the sun can also damage the surface of your eyes over time, just as it can damage the skin.
As to palming: I encountered the problem of being drawn into the colours and images I see with my eyes shut. (Especially since I already practice several kinds of closed eye excercises that involve generating or focusing on images.)
I'm new at all this, so keep your pinches of salt handy, but I found the solution was to treat the lights and colours like the stray thoughts that come up when you're doing empty-mind meditation. Instead of struggling to push the thoughts away, you acknowledge them--"Hello, thought, nice of you to drop by, see you later"--and let them drift by. The same thing seemed to work for colours and shapes when your target is blackness. "Hello, green fuzzy blob, good of you to visit, see you another time." There's usually a spot of blackness floating around; following that seems to allow complete blackness to arise naturally and without strain.
It might even help to set aside times where one is actively engaging with and recording stray visuals, just to get it out of your system... someone with more experience care to comment?
